The Apartment Switch Solution
by CTR69
Summary: Amy and Leonard conspire to make their lives better. Short prequel to The Cohabitation Experimentation ep.


Amy knocked on the door and greeted Leonard in his lab. Her relationship with Sheldon was stuck and it was starting to interfere with her work. It was all she recently could think about. Why are they stuck, why isn't there any progress in their relationship. She needed to push them forward. Out of desperation, she turned to his longtime roommate. Leonard knew much more about Sheldon than Amy did, despite many years she spent with her boyfriend.

"Hey Leonard, got a minute?"

"Sure, Amy. What's up?" Leonard gladly offered his help to Amy. He pulled off his protective goggles and took a seat.

"I've been thinking a lot about my relationship with Sheldon lately and I was wondering, if you could provide me a fresh perspective. I've been going out with Sheldon for seven years now and I'd like to move on already. According to my plan, the next step in my relationship is to start living together with him. This is where I got stuck."

"Hold on, you _want_ to start living together with _Sheldon_?"

"This is the only way to continue and improve our relationship. See? Here's our first coitus in December 2015 and here's when I plan my wedding in 2018." Amy showed him the detailed relationship timeline in her notebook, adjusted for all the events that took place in the past.

"Sheldon... Cooper. Crazy, annoying, obsessive jackass of my roommate, Sheldon?" Leonard was double checking with Amy. Someone actually wanting to live with Sheldon, this thought completely baffled him. Amy grew impatient of his remarks. Despite everything, she was convinced this was the only option. She was not going to give up on Sheldon at this point. She needed to continue at all cost, too much effort was put into him already. Failure was not an option.

"Do you have any suggestions or not? How can I convince him to move in with me, or me with him?"

Leonard was already in his thinking mood. Because he wanted Amy to move in with Sheldon as well. He already thought about how to kick Sheldon out of his own apartment, but came up with nothing. With Amy in it, a new possibility gave him an idea, which just might work.

"Ok, let's think this through. What you're asking, represents a significant and very sudden paradigm shift from his current arrangement. He's not gonna accept your preposition on his own, that's for sure. He's very much used to the existing living arrangement with me and Penny, the couch and his spot. This is his life for the last fifteen years now." Leonard caught a clue. "Only a significant event should, theoretically, make him to... rethink..."

Leonard slowed down his voice. He felt like he was onto something.

"Huh." He was still thinking the conspiracy in his head, double checking it, if he forgot anything and closed all the gaps. Like a solution for an equation, it dawned in his head.

"Event? What are you talking about?" Amy asked, she knew he figured it out. His evil smile gave away his ingenious solution, which will definitely move Amy into Sheldon's life, taking both of them out of his. This will finally give Leonard some peace and alone time with Penny. Using Amy to remove Sheldon from his life, he felt like an evil genius for the first time.

"I got it! Amy, you're gonna _love_ this." He walked across the lab and shut the door. He explained with excitement. "The theory goes, if you want to introduce a significant change to someone like Sheldon, you cannot do it in the open. If you'd talk to him and suggest something like 'Hey Sheldon, I'd like to talk to you about us living together.' he's gonna freak out and decline."

"Ofcourse, we already know that. No open suggestions, this is where I got stuck. How can I convince him, without an honest conversation?" Amy already knew that part. Sheldon was very protective and attached to his place. He won't give it up that easily.

"I'm getting to it, this is the best part. What you do instead, is something called problem, reaction, solution." Leonard got to his whiteboard and drew a flowchart. Three circles in a row with two arrows in between from left to right.

"First, you create a _problem_. An event, which you get someone or something else to blame for. Say, something happened in your apartment. A fire, gas leak, plumbing maintenance, something he won't suspect you did on purpose and it will take a while to repair. It must look like an accident, that's the key."

"You're suggesting I destroy my apartment on purpose? Where are you going with this?" Amy tried to follow Leonard's explanation.

"Hear me out, ok? Then, you provoke an emotional _reaction_ in him." This is where he pointed onto the middle circle. "Or in us all together. Explain to us all what happened, your apartment is ruined, you have no place to go, if we have any suggestions. I will then suggest you could move in with Sheldon and I will move in with Penny. In the final step, you propose this _solution_ …"

He reached and pointed onto the third circle with his marker. "To Sheldon. A solution which he won't be able to refuse. Or maybe he will even suggest his own, you know how he always tries to resolve everything for the best."

"Ofcourse! I already have an experiment planned for our cohabitation, this is the only part I've been missing! He won't be able to refuse it now. Oh, Leonard, this is absolutely brilliant!"

Amy could not contain her happiness, she jumped into hugging Leonard and kissed his cheek.

"No problem, I'm glad I could help. I need someone to take Sheldon off my back. No offense, but I want to move in with Penny as well. I cannot do it on my own. I'd be very grateful, if we could do this together."

"None taken. Living with him is exactly what I need. Thank you so much for this. But wait a minute. What happens after my apartment is fixed?"

"Lie to him some more. I'm sure you'll come up with something at that point, to keep the experiment going, evolving it into a full living arrangement. Go slow and patient with him and you'll achieve what you want. Baby steps, don't throw everything at him at once."

* * *

Both Leonard and Amy worked together through the following week, to create a clean sabotage of her apartment plumbing system. Once the building manager inspected the damage, it looked like a failure due to corrosion, not a deliberate attempt. Leonard knew which chemicals will accelerate the pipe corrosion above Amy's closet. All she had to do is apply the corrosive substance to the exposed pipe until it burst.

The conspiracy worked exactly as planned. Building management concluded the pipeline corroded and it will take five weeks to replace and renovate. All of this was presented to unsuspecting Sheldon, who took the bait.

Just when things couldn't look better for Leonard, Sheldon himself proposed the experiment to take place in Penny's apartment. Leonard's theory worked better than he could ever imagine. Getting his hands on Sheldon's apartment after Penny became his wife, it was his greatest achievement. Sheldon's apartment was much larger and more comfortable than 4B.

With Sheldon out of the way, Leonard could finally make his life as he wanted to. Next up on his agenda, convince Penny to give him his smart and beautiful babies. Amy will gladly returned him a favor. She was back on track in a matter of days, already planning her wedding arrangement further in her diary.

THE END


End file.
